Note: This article has elements of satire. Please read it in the spirit it was intended to be read in. Hope no one arrests us. Or beheads us, for that matter.
Is your day job making your hair fall out?
Are you tired of running around for printouts and groceries?
Do you wish to see the world outside of your nine-to-six life?
Has your life lost out on that spark of adventure it once promised?
Then, look no further.
The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, ISIS, also known as ISIL brings, to all its brothers across the world, from the United States to the Australian continent, the chance to enjoy all these benefits and incentives. Join us at the earliest to make use of our best offers. Hurry, limited opportunities only (We do not provide life insurance).
So must read the fancy ISIS holiday brochure recently released by the terror outfit.
Yes, you read that right and no, I’m not crazy. As it happens, ISIS is trying hard to replace France and the Caribbean as one of the world’s top tourist destinations. Offering a load of added facilities like swimming in world-class facilities, beekeeping and cliff diving across the Tigris; the ISIS is going all out to attract fellow jihadists from the world over.
The Islamic State or the ‘Caliphate’ is not your regular terrorist organization. While similar outfits have tried and slowly failed to make use of cyberspace and other modern ways for asymmetric warfare, the IS has excelled in it and has consistently, and unfortunately successfully, attracted hundreds of jihadists, both devout and wannabe to its cause.
The success may perhaps be attributed to its surprising understanding of media and marketing, spreading its subversive word well into the dark corners of the internet and networking, especially Reddit and Twitter (An outreach programme that would make even the guys at AIESEC jealous).
They even have an app on Android where supporters can keep up with all the news and download pics of their exploits. Talk about repulsive startups.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EXWUQkpJOXw
All seriousness aside, the ISIS is doing a rather unyielding, and a largely enthusiastic job of publicizing their exploits and opportunities. I mean seriously, this time it is swimming, cliff jumping and beekeeping. Who knows, maybe they’ll have bungee jumping and scuba diving in the brochure next year?
After all, not everyone can afford to retire on tax dollars, lounging and basking under the Cayman Islands sun. Maybe someday, after they have updated their facilities, they might even host the FIFA World Cup. After all, if Qatar, a modern-day slave state can, why not a State that sells and exploits slaves for a living?
That said however, life’s not all rosy at ISIS’s many, many holidaying locales, including the once-renowned Nineveh Hotel on the banks of the great river, Tigris. Swimming may have become an obsession, even a luxury with many IS members and recruits these days but look closer, and the sense of normalcy dissipates.
These pools have clear signs which say that all men must wear long shorts and T-shirts while in the pool, must not swear, and must not enter the pool during pool time. So in other words, ISIS is either a Taliban incarnate, or just really, really concerned about the hygiene of the pool.
No women and children on the brochure too because, well, they’re women and children.
The Islamic State’s fresh campaign to attract wannabe zealots on a ‘holiday’ appears to be directly in the face of the public humiliation IS faced last week. And by humiliation, I mean the three Chechan women who duped IS of thousands of dollars by pretending to be mail-order brides.
Catfished by three women on a social network. Now that everyone, including John Oliver has heard, digested, made fun of and laughed at the news, the renewed rigor with which the Islamic State is trying to woo foreign fighters is commendable.
In fact, they should indeed adopt one of Aam Aadmi Party’s many, many, many slogans, most appropriately, “Woh Pareshan Karte Rahe, Hum Kaam Karte Rahe.”
Author’s Note: The success of the Islamic State may be gauged by the mere fact that its existence has remained by and large persistent over the past year and a half. Their surprisingly effective military tactics and the unsurprisingly ineffective military resistance IS faced in Iraq has allowed them keep large swathes of land under its occupation.
Turkey’s entry into the multi-national effort to counter ISIS is unlikely to work, considering they are more concerned with Kurdish forces on their border than the IS, who have for the past year made millions funneling oil on the black market through Turkey.
Unless the coalition makes some much-needed changes in their strategy, both military and otherwise, the IS is unlikely to be pushed out of its occupation, its existence guaranteed for a year at least.
Until then, look forward to be disturbed by more such holiday brochures from ISIS.
It’s time we called on Lt. Aldo Raine to put an end to this. Or Chuck Norris.
